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It was a job interview like any other. I was sitting in front of my laptop, my nerves fraying as I waited for my interviewer to ask me the first question. I reminded myself to take a breath and stop tapping my fingers on the table. Except I wasn’t dressed nicely, I didn’t care about random kitchen utensils or laundry in the background of the camera, and most importantly, my interviewer was an AI.
AI Interview Prep is a new AI feature from LinkedIn that uses existing job postings on LinkedIn to create a short, personalized mock interview. AI can understand the job description, create questions based on the role, and give you feedback after the interview is complete.
I got an early look at the new feature before it launched, and it was a surprisingly realistic interview experience, for better or worse.
“As someone who has done a lot of interviews before, this is bad,” Sharon Zhao, a product manager at LinkedIn, said with a laugh in an interview. “Before, you had to take a course or pay an instructor.” Now, with our AI-powered interview tool, you can practice with “a tool tailored to the job you want to apply for.”
LinkedIn’s new AI Interview Preparation tool will be rolling out soon in English to all Premium subscribers. You’ll be able to use the new tool to advertise jobs that LinkedIn thinks you’d be a moderate to high fit for — if you’re not likely to be a good fit for the role, it won’t let you do a mock interview. Here’s how my tests went, including the one bit of AI-generated feedback that was the most helpful.
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You can interview for job postings on LinkedIn that you are a moderate to high match for.
Interview with Amnesty International
To get started, I went to the Jobs tab on LinkedIn and selected a post by a senior writer. I told LinkedIn that it would be a good fit for me based on the experience and skills I already had on my LinkedIn profile, so I scrolled down and clicked “Practice for Interview.” I was then sent into a Zoom-like conference room (no cameras, just audio).
My AI interviewer began by explaining the process and reminding me that nothing I said in the mock interview would be shared with any company. Then he asked me five questions related to the role. These questions are very clearly taken from the job description, sometimes word for word. But it was nice not to have to ask proper interview questions myself.
AI uses a common knowledge base to create interview questions, which are then refined based on the qualifications described in the job posting, according to Gao. This is intended to make it a useful tool no matter what industry you hope to work in. While developing the tool, the LinkedIn team also reached out to colleagues in different roles to evaluate what interviews would look like for each job.
“We took the comments of the people we spoke to and added them as examples into our prompt as a little golden group to help MBAs understand what it means to ask a good question of a software engineer versus a salesperson,” Gao said.
Read more: Does artificial intelligence put jobs at risk? A recent survey found an important distinction
This is what the mock interview screen looks like.
Response time was fast, with only about 30 seconds between the end of my answer and the AI’s response. This helped keep the interview going normally, or as naturally as possible, between one human and one AI. It felt very similar to use Voice mode for ChatGPT-5.
Practicing your answers out loud is a great way to prepare for the interview. Often times, the ideas I have in my head never come out as eloquently as I plan on the first try. Practicing how to explain your work experience, management style, or skills is very helpful. You can take your time to think before answering the AI, which is something you may not want to do in a real interview. You can interview the AI as many times as you want.
Don’t get a lot of responses or comments during the interview. After I finished my answer, the AI returned a shortened version of what I said, usually in a positive light — “Yes, calendar blocks are an effective way to manage your time,” for example. But you get more useful feedback once you finish the session.
LinkedIn’s AI assesses how prepared you are for the interview, including your strengths and areas for improvement.
Once the mock interview is over, the AI takes a minute or two to analyze your answers before taking you to a new window containing the scorecard. You get a readiness score, which is a sliding scale from low to high. But the most useful part for me was how the AI analyzed our interview transcript and flagged places where my answers could be improved.
For example, the AI highlighted how some of my answers were too long and could have benefited from being more concise. But instead of just asking me to get to the point, she gave me a real-life example of how I could rephrase my answer to avoid getting lost in the details. Having an example of an alternative response is more helpful than simply asking you to improve certain things and figure out how to do it yourself. That’s why it was my favorite part of the comments.
This is an example of rewriting my answer on LinkedIn. You can see that my answer (top paragraph) is much longer than the AI-recommended example (bottom paragraph).
Final Thoughts: This is a good use of AI in recruiting
Job seekers, recruiters and everyone has seen how AI has infiltrated every step of the hiring process. Some applicants rely on Chatbots to write their resume And cover letters, instead Employers are using AI-enabled systems To help them sort through applications. It seems like resume writing and career preparation services everywhere claim to know the key to getting your resume past AI screening programs.
If that wasn’t bad enough, some people end up dying Talk to those working with artificial intelligence For initial screening calls, the need to go beyond the bot requirements to get to the next round of interviews with a real person. Artificial intelligence is one of the many reasons we are witnessing today The job market is hellAs Annie Lurie in The Atlantic put it succinctly earlier this year.
That’s why I was initially wary of an AI-powered tool that claims to make this process easier. LinkedIn’s AI-based interview preparation tool doesn’t solve any of these problems, but it shows how generative AI can make the process less painful and more productive. It is a practical and focused tool that can help you improve your existing skills.
This seems like it would be a great tool for job seekers early in their careers, especially those who have just graduated and perhaps don’t have much experience interviewing. It’s also a great option for people who may not have mentors or people in their professional network who can help them prepare.
At the very least, using this tool is one way to build confidence before an interview. If AI can improve this small part of the job search process, it’s worth exploring.
For more, check out Why might AI be able to do some of your job tasks without stealing your job?.